CyberAlert -- December 28, 1996 -- Netanyahu Blamed

Important Note: Some
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This very week
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to follow the peace treaty and
turn over another town, Hebron, to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, as Jeff
Jacoby, the Boston Globe's conservative columnist pointed out December 26,
the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to violate the Oslo Accords. On
December 11 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
fired into a car and killed a Jewish mother and her 12-year-old son. Yasir
Arafat refuses to let Israel prosecute the gunmen despite, as Jacoby
noted, "the explicit mandate of the Oslo Accords which...obligates
the Palestinian Authority to arrest and extradite criminal suspects.
(Israel has made 27 extradition requests since the accords were signed.
The Palestinian Authority has denied them all.)"

The accords also
demanded that the PLO eliminate from its charter the plank calling for the
extermination of Israel. The PLO has yet to comply. Sounds like it's
Arafat who needs to "grow in the job and become a peacemaker."

Well, let's go
the Best Notable Quotables of 1996: The Ninth Annual Awards for the Year's
Worst Reporting and see for what quote White won the Timothy McVeigh Award
(for blaming conservatives for violence).
"The torching of black churches throughout the South punctuates the
ugly rhetoric of the Buchanan campaign....In fact, all the conservative
Republicans, from Newt Gingrich to Pete Wilson, who have sought political
advantage by exploiting white resentment should come and stand in the
charred ruins of the New Liberty Baptist Church in Tyler [Alabama]...and
wonder if their coded phrases encouraged the arsonists. Over the past 18
months, while Republicans fulminated about welfare and affirmative action,
more than 20 churches in Alabama and six other Southern and Border states
have been torched....there is already enough evidence to indict the
cynical conservatives who build their political careers, George
Wallace-style, on a foundation of race-baiting. They may not start fires,
but they fan the flames."
-- Time national correspondent Jack E. White, March 18 issue.

Below is the
December 30 edition of Notable Quotables, the MRC's bi-weekly compilation
of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.
This week: A special good-bye salute to Bryant Gumbel, our bountiful
Babylon of biased bombast.

December
30, 1996 (Vol. Nine; No. 27)

BYE-BYE
BRYANT: Gumbel's Years of Liberal Advocacy

Editor's Note:
January 3 will be Bryant Gumbel's last day after 15 years as co-host of
NBC's Today. Here are highlights from 1989 through 1996.

1989

"Blacks have
looked at the past eight years and seen this administration retreat from
civil rights, retreat from affirmative action, make South Africa no
priority, continue to see a greater disparity economically between blacks
and whites, foster a spirit of racism that hasn't been seen in 20-plus
years."
-- To Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater, January 19 Today.

"Largely as
a result of the policies and priorities of the Reagan administration, more
people are becoming poor and staying poor in this country than at any time
since World War II."
-- July 17 Today.

"This test
is not going to tell you whether you're a racist or a liberal."
-- Previewing his prime-time special The Racial Attitudes and
Consciousness Exam, September 5 Today.

1990

"It is
certain the President won't mention the T word, and yet taxes are very
much at the heart of what all our potential solutions are. How long can
both sides pretend that a hike's not needed?"
-- January 31.

"The
missteps, poor efforts, and setbacks brought on by the Reagan years have
made this a more sober Earth Day. The task seems larger now."
-- April 20 Today.

"The bottom
line is more tax money is going to be needed....It's a Wednesday morning,
a day when the budget picture, frankly, seems gloomier than ever. It now
seems the time has come to pay the fiddler for our costly dance of the
Reagan years."
-- Gumbel leading off Today, May 9.

1991

"Tonight the
NBC News program Expos, looks at incidence of sexual harassment in
[federal low-income] housing....Well, I guess that's where the problem
began. Actually, it was when the budget was taken out of the affordable
housing market during the Reagan years and thus, the problem came
about."
-- To reporter Michele Gillen, September 20 Today.

Reporter Lea
Thompson: "...So you can't depend on government police to do this for
you. We did find this flammable sleepwear everywhere we went."
Gumbel: "Lea, Lea, real quick. Why is the government abdicating its
responsibility on this? Is this another holdover from the Reagan years and
the cutbacks?"
Thompson: "Absolutely. And somebody's gotta do something."
--Exchange on Today, November 13.

1992
"The boom years following World War II saw the economy take off,
giving rise to the growth of the great American middle class. The rising
standard of living meant homes, cars, TVS, college for the kids -- all in
all, a piece of the American dream. But in the Reagan years, economic
erosion set in, so much so that the middle class now finds itself in
ever-deepening trouble."
-- January 22 Today.

"We keep
looking for some good to come out of this. Maybe it might help in putting
race relations on the front burner after they've been subjugated so long
as a result of the Reagan years."
-- On the Los Angeles riots, April 30, 1992 Today (Gumbel refused to
condemn the rioters).

1993

"It's early
yet, but for at least trying to address the deficit in a more serious
fashion than anyone in 12 years, what kind of early marks do you give Bill
Clinton?"
-- To author Gerald Swanson, March 17 Today.

"In the
greedy excesses of the Reagan years, the mean income of the average
physician nearly doubled, from $88,000 to $170,000. Was that
warranted?"
-- To the AMA's Richard Corlin, March 31 Today.

"If I'm a
young black man in South Central L.A., where poverty is rampant and
unemployment is skyrocketing, I see that Washington's promises of a year
ago have gone unfulfilled, I see that perhaps for a second time, the
court's inability to mete out justice in a blind fashion, why shouldn't I
vent my anger?"
-- To U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), April 15 Today.

1994

"It's been
written that being black in America is like being a witness at your own
lynching. Why didn't your experience make you more resentful than you are
today?"
-- To criminal-turned-Washington Post reporter Nathan McCall, March 22
Today.

"We've got
an awful lot to talk about this week, including the sexual harassment suit
against the President. Of course, in that one, it's a little tough to
figure out who's really being harassed."
-- Today, May 10.

"You're
aligned to a party which owes many of its victories to the so-called
religious right and other conservative extremists who are historically
insensitive to minority concerns. That doesn't bother you?"
-- To U.S. Rep.-elect J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), November 9 Today.

1995

"You called
Gingrich and his ilk, your words, 'trickle-down terrorists who base their
agenda on division, exclusion, and fear.' Do you think middle class
Americans are in need of protection from that group?"
-- To about-to-be House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, January 4 Today.

"Janet Reno
has asked for an independent counsel to investigate charges against HUD
Secretary Henry Cisneros. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown is being
investigated. Questions have been raised about Transportation Secretary
Federico Pena. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy resigned under pressure, as
did Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. The Clinton White House seems to be
having a hard time retaining high-profile minorities particularly. Do you
think, Senator, they are being held to a higher standard in Washington
than their white predecessors?"
-- To Senator Ted Kennedy, March 15 Today.

"This comes
at a time when Republicans are looking to gut the Clean Water Act and also
the Safe Drinking Water Act. What are our options? Are we now forced to
boil water because bottled water is not an economically feasible option
for a lot of people?"
-- To Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Erik Olson, June 1 Today.

"Two weeks
after his acquittal, we'll see how O.J. Simpson is still being treated as
if he were guilty."
-- October 16 Today.

1996

"While he
appeared to be empathetic, his policies caused enormous suffering for
those who were least able to afford it."
--Referring to Ronald Reagan on the October 10 MSNBC InterNight.

(For more quotes
from 1996, see The Best Notable Quotables of 1996: The Ninth Annual Awards
for the Year's Worst Reporting. The issue can be viewed from the MRC's
home page: www.mediaresearch.org.)

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